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The first two episodes of a new series dropped yesterday on Paramount Plus.

Spun off from Discovery it features a new class of students entering Starfleet Academy in the 32nd century. The Academy taking place both on the San Francisco campus and a ship the USS Athena.

Only watch the pilot so far. It starts in basically the bad old days of the post burn Starfleet pre-Discovery fixing everything. And our Captain separating a mother and child and the child going on the run. fifteen years later, said Captain, who resigned after than incident, is assigned to be head of the academy. At that same time that child is arrested after a life of crime, so the captain gets him out out of guilt and gets him to go to the academy.

The big academy ship is going from starfleet headquarters to earth. We meet the cadets. Said criminal. a pacifist klingon, an admiral's daughter who's lived on ships and starbases her whole life. A tilly like awkward Hologram girl and an asshole bully. (who's looks human like but is the first of some alien species that can survive vacuum)

oh and the emh is the cmo of the ship and the prodigy cast get an explicit reference and name drop. There's a memorial wall that has lot of names and end ranks of past crew. According to TVtropes a good chunk of them never made far past their end rank of the shows (apart from Harry Kim who ended up an Admiral)

The ship is ambushed en route. The main cast cadets rally to save the day. They get to earth and the starship lands to make up the campus building.

I've got a lot of petty complaints about the concept and a few other things. I'd have been fine with the main cast just being... regular cadets not some criminal who doesn't want to be there but it so talented etc has a link to the captain etc. A few too many aliens with weird powers. (a orementioned vacuum capable cadet.) and I still don't like the aesthetic of the 32nd century ships. but nothing too drastic. It was a perfectly fine start.

Putting the entire academy on a single ship seems like a bad idea. It's too easy for someone to wipe it out, as the first episode demonstrated.

Crazedwraith wrote: 2026-01-16 06:32pm There's a memorial wall that has lot of names and end ranks of past crew. According to TVtropes a good chunk of them never made far past their end rank of the shows (apart from Harry Kim who ended up an Admiral)

I'm curious how many of the names on that wall are characters we know, and how many are from other parts of Starfleets 1000 year history.

I've got a lot of petty complaints about the concept and a few other things.

Same here. But I'm enjoying what I've seen so far despite them.

bilateralrope wrote: 2026-01-18 11:32pm

Crazedwraith wrote: 2026-01-16 06:32pm There's a memorial wall that has lot of names and end ranks of past crew. According to TVtropes a good chunk of them never made far past their end rank of the shows (apart from Harry Kim who ended up an Admiral)

I'm curious how many of the names on that wall are characters we know, and how many are from other parts of Starfleets 1000 year history.

Yeah, just from watching, not doing any analysis, it's massive weight towards names we recognise.

--

Just watched episode 2 in chunks across an evening. Again it didn't quite click for me.

So Betazad's not rejoined the Federation yet and has been blocking off a big chunk of space with its psychic powers... somehow. But they have a youth organisation that wants to rejoin the Federation. So their president is making a show of coming over and demanding massive concessions in negotiations to rejoin.

Caleb meets the president's daughter romantic hijinks and disagreements ensue. He finds out his mother was in betazed space. They get Betazed onboard by promising the Capital of the Federation will be on Betazed rather than Paris, Earth. The End.

It doesn't feel like an episode than naturally fits an Academy show, it feels like an episode for an adult focused show that's had the academy forced into it. The Academy bits aren't bad. There are Brikar and exocomps floating around and the EMH and Jett Reno teaching wacky classes but so far they're window dressing.

And anyone who isn't Caleb and to a lesser extent the bully got a mandatory couple of lines. The problem is Genesis and Sam and Jay-Den are as interesting if not moreso than Caleb's plot. So I hope we get more of the ensemble as the show goes on. This one was about reiterating Caleb's whole... thing.

I also hope the Klingon/Jem Hadar lady gets more to her than being a Klingon/Hem Hadar.

Some interesting details across both episodes:
- The Badlands have changed color.
- Bajor seems to have remained in the Federation through the Burn.
- The academy has gates that look designed to be easily climbed.
- Holograms are easily confused.
- Everyone carrying those jars of mucus around seems like a bad idea. Would it be better to care for them by leaving them somewhere ?

Crazedwraith wrote: 2026-01-19 06:41pmThey get Betazed onboard by promising the Capital of the Federation will be on Betazed rather than Paris, Earth. The End.

I liked that resolution. It's a creative way of finding a solution that everyone accepts, and all Caleb did was keep everyone talking until one of the adults thought of it.

I also hope the Klingon/Jem Hadar lady gets more to her than being a Klingon/Hem Hadar.

I want to know why the Jem Hadar changed from a cloned species to one that reproduces sexually.

It looks like Starfleet Academy has upset Elon Musk and Stephen Miller.

That is a good sign.

I know it's mindless anti-woke stuff but the specific complaint: "oh no, she's using reading glasses!" Is hilarious.

Like James T Kirk you mean?

Kirk was almost a thousand years earlier! Surely they didn't have advanced medical technology (or warp drive, artificial gravity, deflector shields, transporters...) back then?

I didn't think it was possible to write something worse than ST:Picard, but they've done it. This is like a Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff in space, all the characters are insufferable shits who make me want to punch them in the groin. One episode is enough, I'd rather clean toilets than suffer through another minute of this trash.

Ever since DISCO I've taken a more slackish attitude on Star Trek and so far I'm enjoying the YA-ness in this series. Hopefully not all of the stories are limited to inside the campus.
I like the part in the 3rd episode where they come up with an elaborate prank which involves some technobabble as opposed to a mock combat to "win" the "war". Very Trek-ish

That was a brightly lit bedroom.

Also, how badly did that prank of beaming the first years to Alcatraz break the transporters if it took a day to get everyone down ?

bilateralrope wrote: 2026-01-20 07:28pm It looks like Starfleet Academy has upset Elon Musk and Stephen Miller.

That is a good sign.

I was going to give this a miss but now I'm definately going to watch.

aerius wrote: 2026-01-22 02:40pm I didn't think it was possible to write something worse than ST:Picard, but they've done it. This is like a Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff in space, all the characters are insufferable shits who make me want to punch them in the groin. One episode is enough, I'd rather clean toilets than suffer through another minute of this trash.

So, they're typical elite attitude students their age? SHOCKING

Grand Moff Yenchin wrote: 2026-01-22 09:05pm Ever since DISCO I've taken a more slackish attitude on Star Trek and so far I'm enjoying the YA-ness in this series. Hopefully not all of the stories are limited to inside the campus.
I like the part in the 3rd episode where they come up with an elaborate prank which involves some technobabble as opposed to a mock combat to "win" the "war". Very Trek-ish

The transporter module was an interesting touch. The War College leaving it behind makes me think that their faculty didn't notice/care that one had gone missing, or they thought that Starfleet would be sloppy enough that they could retrieve it later. Then the Starfleet cadets have the module transport itself.

I didn't like that they were using a protected species. That part feels like someone was trying to force a message against environmental regulations.


The rivalry between Starfleet Academy and the War College could get interesting over the season. As far as I can tell, the War College trains people for Earths military. The one that kept Earth safe after the burn with a planetary shield and didn't even know about what was going on in the outer solar system. The staff can't be happy that Starfleet is suddenly back.

bilateralrope wrote: 2026-01-26 01:23pm

Grand Moff Yenchin wrote: 2026-01-22 09:05pm Ever since DISCO I've taken a more slackish attitude on Star Trek and so far I'm enjoying the YA-ness in this series. Hopefully not all of the stories are limited to inside the campus.
I like the part in the 3rd episode where they come up with an elaborate prank which involves some technobabble as opposed to a mock combat to "win" the "war". Very Trek-ish

The transporter module was an interesting touch. The War College leaving it behind makes me think that their faculty didn't notice/care that one had gone missing, or they thought that Starfleet would be sloppy enough that they could retrieve it later. Then the Starfleet cadets have the module transport itself.

I didn't like that they were using a protected species. That part feels like someone was trying to force a message against environmental regulations.


The rivalry between Starfleet Academy and the War College could get interesting over the season. As far as I can tell, the War College trains people for Earths military. The one that kept Earth safe after the burn with a planetary shield and didn't even know about what was going on in the outer solar system. The staff can't be happy that Starfleet is suddenly back.

I agree the interaction between a newly reformed star fleet and the war college seems to be one of the more interesting and entertaining elements of this series so far.

I managed to find the first episode.

This whole affair is reminding me of Acolyte. Was it a progressive, innovative show driven off the air by review bombing? Or was it woke self-indulgence with nothing to back it up?

As in Crimson Tide, both were right and both were wrong. It does look suspiciously like there's a review-bombing campaign going on, and I can't shake the feeling that some of them just don't like seeing non-white non-cisgender people onscreen at all. On the other hand, people know about review bombing, and...

bobalot wrote: 2026-01-26 05:43am

bilateralrope wrote: 2026-01-20 07:28pm It looks like Starfleet Academy has upset Elon Musk and Stephen Miller.

That is a good sign.

I was going to give this a miss but now I'm definately going to watch.

...the Passion of Saint Tibulus effect is in play. If Starfleet Academy isn't performing all that well, then a bunch of anti-woke loudmouths screeching on YouTube is unlikely to be the only reason.

So what did I think? Well, it was nothing like as bad as I had been led to believe, but something didn't quite click for me either. If I had to give a reason, then it felt teeny. It lacked gravitas, and the focus seemed to be teen drama and silly comedy; which for me fell flat (with the exception of Robert Picardo). I'm starting to think that at least some of the bad reaction is fans wanting old-style serious Trek, and not getting it.

Yep, episode 4 is long out and I've only just finished 3. Still stopping and starting the episodes a lot. Don't know if it's just my attention span as a whole that's an issue or not gelling with the episodes/series itself.


Anyway, this at least had one advantage over the second episode. It's definitely an academy episode about the academy, not one that's had to find away to include the academy in something else.

to whit, sport's tryouts and school pranks. Fun, fun.(/s) Once we got past the phaser tag into the end of the episode and the lessons learnt, it got a little better but still Reno had to explicit spell stuff out for Darem. So Darem's got a freudian excuse, cool, he's still a massive massive dick, I'm not sure it works out in his favour.

I actually Kyle in the war college seems to be not as much of a dick and genuinely amused/nice about both Jay-den stalling them and the planet invasion at the end. I hope we see more of him. It'd be nice to have more than one token nice person at the college.

Less happy that the two nastier ones were vulcan and romulan. Can't we have some nice vulcans again please? Why does the franchise always dickify them? I'd love more exploration of the combined ni'var culture.

Genesis is cool and I like her with Jay-Den, instantly accepting his pacifism and them him coming through when he could help out pacifistically. So to speak.

Still not gelling with the captain and Lura sadly.

Like by the end this episode was a fine, rather standard school thing. Not mould breaking but still... fine.

bilateralrope wrote: 2026-01-26 01:23pm The rivalry between Starfleet Academy and the War College could get interesting over the season. As far as I can tell, the War College trains people for Earths military. The one that kept Earth safe after the burn with a planetary shield and didn't even know about what was going on in the outer solar system. The staff can't be happy that Starfleet is suddenly back.

The War College is supposed to be what kept Starfleet going when the Academy was closed during the burn, not Earth Force. (Though that might have made more sense)

Thought it means they set up this massive campus on Earth when it re-joined and moved them both there for some reason the higher ups seem to be actually invoke and encouraging the rivalry for some reason.

Juubi Karakuchi wrote: 2026-01-29 01:52pmSo what did I think? Well, it was nothing like as bad as I had been led to believe, but something didn't quite click for me either. If I had to give a reason, then it felt teeny. It lacked gravitas, and the focus seemed to be teen drama and silly comedy; which for me fell flat (with the exception of Robert Picardo). I'm starting to think that at least some of the bad reaction is fans wanting old-style serious Trek, and not getting it.

It's a shitty teen drama that got dumped into a Star Trek setting, that's why it feels fake and immature. Replace Starfleet Academy with a high school and the characters suddenly make a lot more sense. I didn't like teen drama shows when I was younger and these days I downright hate them. I want to watch Star Trek, not 90210 in Space.

Crazedwraith wrote: 2026-01-31 12:18pm

bilateralrope wrote: 2026-01-26 01:23pm The rivalry between Starfleet Academy and the War College could get interesting over the season. As far as I can tell, the War College trains people for Earths military. The one that kept Earth safe after the burn with a planetary shield and didn't even know about what was going on in the outer solar system. The staff can't be happy that Starfleet is suddenly back.

The War College is supposed to be what kept Starfleet going when the Academy was closed during the burn, not Earth Force. (Though that might have made more sense)

Thought it means they set up this massive campus on Earth when it re-joined and moved them both there for some reason the higher ups seem to be actually invoke and encouraging the rivalry for some reason.

Except they said in the first episode that the War College preserved the academy grounds since the burn. Which means they would have had to been operating on Earth when Earth's government had no idea how to contact the Federation.



Whatever training facilities kept Starfleet going were probably fleet based, like everything else we saw of the Federation. The Athena would make sense as one of those training ships.

Lura Thok (the Cadet Master) has mentioned that she graduated from War College. Likely the other 32nd Century Starfleet Officers we've seen in DISCO, unless having a longer life span like the Captain, would've graduated from War College.

Ep4 is interesting, and it's good to finally see the Klingons back in the 32nd Century and some thoughts put into the issue in the episode.

The only part I felt weird was Qo'noS blowing up resulting in Klingons, a spacefaring race with an interstellar empire getting near extinct. Its kinda lazy writing (what's next, Cardassia Prime getting blown up and the Cardassians near extinct?) but it can be expanded and further explained.

Grand Moff Yenchin wrote: 2026-02-01 09:37pm Lura Thok (the Cadet Master) has mentioned that she graduated from War College. Likely the other 32nd Century Starfleet Officers we've seen in DISCO, unless having a longer life span like the Captain, would've graduated from War College.

So we have them both training Starfleet personnel, and preserving the academy grounds on Earth. While it was cut off. The best explanation I can think of is that the writers screwed up.

Which means I'll agree that the War College was training people for Starfleet.

Ep4 is interesting, and it's good to finally see the Klingons back in the 32nd Century and some thoughts put into the issue in the episode.

The only part I felt weird was Qo'noS blowing up resulting in Klingons, a spacefaring race with an interstellar empire getting near extinct. Its kinda lazy writing (what's next, Cardassia Prime getting blown up and the Cardassians near extinct?) but it can be expanded and further explained.

I'm thinking that it was part Qo'noS blowing up, along with the loss of the klingon fleet, that made them easy pickings for their enemies and any opportunists.

Though I have to wonder why they were running enough antimatter reactors on the planet to destroy it when they all exploded. It doesn't seem like anyone else was.

Episode 4 -that really was a strong episode.

I again, like episode 2, wonder about the solution a bit. 1 hour episode on global affairs have the effect of being a bit pat, to whit: No klingons are going to sus out that the federation let them win and be insulted? And the flip side you're encouraging them in a conqueror's take what you want mindset can cause trouble down the line.

But Jay-Den's backstory and current struggle were all very well done, as I was hoping for. I think it did a good balance in both sides have a point. Caleb's only accidentally being a dick and there disagreement is... honest, so to speak?

I am glad Jay-den got Lura in a mentor to role to get a slightly different side of her and a tantalising glimpse of her backstory.

I do hope he gets more non-klingon related spotlight episodes as well though.

Some trivial observations:

Shit ton of continuity nods to an almost distracting level.
Jay-den's accent on klingon words differs from how they were pronouced in the B&B era I think. I wonder if it's closer to Okrand's original or not. I don't mind either way, linguistic drift over the centuries after all

Crazedwraith wrote: 2026-02-02 05:47pm Episode 4 -that really was a strong episode.

I again, like episode 2, wonder about the solution a bit. 1 hour episode on global affairs have the effect of being a bit pat, to whit: No klingons are going to sus out that the federation let them win and be insulted? And the flip side you're encouraging them in a conqueror's take what you want mindset can cause trouble down the line.

Yes, deceptions like this have a habit of causing problems.


But I did note that the Klingon weapons barely did anything to Starfleet shields. I doubt they would be holding back as that would require bringing more of them in on the truth, so that might be all their weapons can do. They don't look like they have been able to keep up with tech development of the Federation and, if they are refusing aid, they won't have much access to dilithium.

bilateralrope wrote: 2026-02-02 12:38am
So we have them both training Starfleet personnel, and preserving the academy grounds on Earth. While it was cut off. The best explanation I can think of is that the writers screwed up.

Which means I'll agree that the War College was training people for Starfleet.

Nothing was mentioned about the War College when Tilly began training cadets during DISCO, so yeah, a later addition for the school rivalry drama that also kinda causes some confusion I guess, especially when the Chancellor mentions that they share the site with the College.

I'm thinking that it was part Qo'noS blowing up, along with the loss of the klingon fleet, that made them easy pickings for their enemies and any opportunists.

Though I have to wonder why they were running enough antimatter reactors on the planet to destroy it when they all exploded. It doesn't seem like anyone else was.

Now some memory is coming back maybe additional to the reactors, somehow something also triggered the planet-wide devastating volcanic reaction Georgiou was ready to do back in the first season of DISCO with a portable explosive.

Yeah, the War college wasn't mentioned in Disco as far as I recall, they probably realised not having any kind of school for century was kind of stupid and gently retconned it.

They also seem to have retconned the klingon empire joining the Federation according to Daniels in Enterprise.